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SCMP Reporter

ON January 24 this year, Gary Alderdice, bleeding heavily from a knife wound to his chest, called for an ambulance to come to his luxury home at 72 Chung Hom Kok Road, near Stanley.

  The lawyer, whose work caused him to deal with criminals for much of his career, had been stabbed in the chest and the loss of blood was life-threatening.

   An ambulance drew up at 8.43 pm and Alderdice was taken to the Hong Kong Adventist Hospital.

  Within minutes of admission the man who had built a fabulous reputation for prosecuting and defending a litany of alleged and confessed Hong Kong criminals was being pumped with sedatives, X-rayed, laboratory tested and operated on.

  He was discharged the next day after an operation costing just over $12,000.

  During inquiries made at the time by the South China Morning Post, Alderdice telephoned a Post reporter and threatened a legal injunction to prevent publication, although he did not deny he had been stabbed.

  ''Two people know exactly what happened. One's in [another country] and the other one's me. I expect you realise that every time a story is told, it changes,'' he said.

  ''It is an entirely personal matter that is over, and has been dealt with, legally, to its end,'' he said.

  Both parties to the incident agreed that discretion should prevail and Alderdice reputedly settled the matter by paying out $6 million.

  His wife Pippa returned to New Zealand soon afterwards.

  Friends of Alderdice linked his radical change in lifestyle to the breakdown of his marriage to Pippa.

  From a high point as one of Hong Kong's most respected and popular legal brains, the life of the wealthy former family man was ended by a bullet next to his tortured blonde lover in a Vladivostok flat.

  It was a violent and tragic end to a gregarious life for the New Zealander, as renowned for his quick wit and penchant for women, wine and song as for his prowess in the territory's highest courts.

  He was known as a loveable rogue and, according to one of his best friends, Gary Plowman QC, people chose to overlook his flaws because he was so full of fun.

  ''He was a bit of a lad but everyone accepted him for what he was,'' Mr Plowman said yesterday.

  ''He was a man everybody wanted to be with. He loved sport, tennis was his passion and he was very good. He was also a great golfer.''   In May 1984, two of Hong Kong's high-profile legal men about town hit the headlines when they resigned from top jobs in the Legal Department to enter private practice - they were known as the two Garys.

  Gary Alderdice and Gary Plowman led the charge for Commonwealth lawyers to be admitted to the local Bar.

 Both men had studied law in Wellington, New Zealand, both played rugby together, both worked as prosecutors for the Government, both resigned on the same day to go into private practice and both men took Silk1 on the same day.

  Associates of Mrs Alderdice said the couple had persevered with an unhappy marriage, Gary's second, for some time.

 They had no children, although he had three boys with his first wife, Christine.

  Mrs Alderdice, formerly married to Hong Kong lawyer Peter Graham, was at her home in New Zealand yesterday, distressed and unable to fathom the awful tragedy, said her lawyer, Sharon Ser.

  Early this year, husband and wife finally began a legal separation which according to friends, had ''knocked Gary sideways''.

  ''The breakup affected him enormously . . . he didn't feel he could do his best work and took some time off,'' said Mr Plowman.

  Peter Sherwood, who co-wrote books with his best friend of almost 20 years, said yesterday he had been trying to ''reach out'' to Alderdice for months.

  ''He was my friend and I loved him. For the last nine months or so I was trying to connect with him, to tell him I was there. He was withdrawn.

  ''It's always a concern if you go through marriages and they don't work and you keep doing what doesn't work,'' he said.

 Mr Sherwood said he knew nothing about Alderdice's 20-year-old Russian lover, Natalya Samoslava, except that he now suspected Alderdice had been trying to recreate some romance in his life.



Barrister escaped brush with death in January stabbing